(I can’t get no) satisfaction: Happiness and successful societies

2018 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 279-293 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bryan S. Turner
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Life Satisfaction ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Global Financial Crisis ◽  
The United States ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Individual Experience ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
The World ◽  
The Global Financial Crisis

Whereas happiness ( eudaimonia or human flourishing) was fundamental to the classical thought of the Greeks and Romans, as felicitas and beatitudo were to Christianity and a ‘felicific calculus’ to utilitarian philosophers, since Max Weber’s criticism of happiness as a goal of social policy it has largely disappeared from mainstream sociology. The article contrasts Aristotle’s view of eudaimonia from the Nicomachean Ethics, in which a happy/flourishing polis was a necessary condition for happy/flourishing citizens, with contemporary societies in which, while there is much talk about happiness, it is often understood as an individual experience associated with pleasure (and especially with privatized consumption). Happiness studies indicate that happiness cannot be separated from a successful society. Recent data from the United States show how life satisfaction is declining with economic decay. The World Happiness Report of 2015 also helps us to distinguish between societies that recovered quickly from the global financial crisis and those that did not.

Ambition Realized

2021 ◽  
pp. 171-192
Author(s):  
Peter Martin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Soft Power ◽  
Global Financial Crisis ◽  
The United States ◽  
Terrorist Attacks ◽  
The World ◽  
International Image ◽  
The Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Taiwan Straits

Within hours of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, China’s diplomats moved to improve ties with the United States. Spotting an opportunity to improve their country’s international image and influence as the United States became distracted by the Middle East, Beijing established important bilateral dialogues with countries around the world and invested in its soft power. China’s previous efforts to woo its neighbors after Tiananmen and especially after the 1996 Taiwan Straits also paid off. The period culminated with China hosting the 2008 Summer Olympics—the most significant moment of international validation for the regime since its founding. Beijing’s improved reputation was damaged, however, when it began to act assertively in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis.

2013 Spillover Report

Policy Papers ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 (58) ◽  
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Global Financial Crisis ◽  
The United States ◽  
Output Gap ◽  
Global Challenge ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
The World ◽  
The Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Output Gaps ◽  
Global Activity

Five years after the global financial crisis, the severe tensions and risks rooted last year in some of the “Systemic five” (S5)—China, euro area, Japan, United Kingdom, United States––have abated but all five are still operating below potential, i.e., they are not contributing to global activity as much as they might: if they could somehow close their output gaps, global output would be closer to potential by 3 percentage points. Meanwhile, many parts of the rest of the world have been at or near potential. Most recently though, there have been signs of accelerated recovery in the United States and slowdown in emerging markets. This continued divergence in cyclical positions poses a global challenge, namely to find policies that help the S5 close their output gap without over-stimulating or over-tightening, through spillovers, economies that do not need it.

scholarly journals WTO Reform: A China Round?

2020 ◽  
Vol 114 ◽  
pp. 23-32
Author(s):  
Henry Gao
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World Trade ◽  
Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Rapid Development ◽  
The United States ◽  
Chinese Economy ◽  
Economic Decline ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
The Global Financial Crisis

Since its accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), China's exports have been growing exponentially. In 2009, China became the world's top goods exporter. Four years later, China unseated the United States as the top trading nation in the world. In contrast to the burgeoning Chinese economy, the United States and Europe have been suffering from economic decline since the global financial crisis in 2008. China regards its rise as a long overdue restoration of its rightful position, as it has been the largest economy in the world for most of its history, except the brief aberration over the past 150 years. The Western powers, however, view China's rapid development with suspicion, as they attribute China's success mostly to its state-led development model, with state-owned enterprises, massive subsidies, and heavy government intervention playing a major role.

scholarly journals International Crises and China's Rise: Comparing the 2008 Global Financial Crisis and the 2017 Global Political Crisis

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 383-401 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brantly Womack
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Political Leadership ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
The World ◽  
The Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Relative Change

Abstract The profound political uncertainties in international politics created by developments in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and North Korea (DPRK) are similar in some respects to the economic uncertainties created by the global financial crisis of 2008. In both crises there is a sudden and general awareness of vulnerability, and it is unclear how long the current uncertainty will last. With the election of Donald Trump, the United States is again at the centre of a global crisis. China is again the least vulnerable of the major states. Everyone including China is disadvantaged by the current political crisis. However, in relative terms China stands to gain, as it did in 2008. The relative change in international relationships will be most obvious in Asia. The focus here is on the cycle of uncertainty that characterizes both crises. However, the effects of the current political crisis are likely to contrast with the effects of the earlier economic crisis. From 2008 to 2014, other countries were worried about their own economies and about the world economy in general, and also about what China’s arrival as a regional and global economic power might mean for them. Meanwhile, American leadership under Obama seemed less assertive, while China appeared to be more assertive. By contrast, in 2015, China’s economy had already entered a ‘new normal’ of slower economic growth, while its consolidated political leadership supports multilateral globalization. American political leadership is unpredictable in both general strategic terms and in terms of crisis management. Just as the world needed the economic lift provided by China in 2008, it now needs the political reassurance of stability that China appears to provide. However, the United States may find it difficult to adjust to the shift in political influence.

Ocena antykryzysowej polityki gospodarczej Stanów Zjednoczonych i wybranych państw członkowskich Unii Europejskiej w latach 2005–2014

2016 ◽  
pp. 26-46
Author(s):  
Marcin Jan Flotyński
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
European Union ◽  
Financial Markets ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Global Financial Crisis ◽  
The United States ◽  
The European Union ◽  
High Volatility ◽  
The Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Domestic Products

The global financial crisis in 2007–2009 began a period of high volatility on the financial markets. Specifically, it caused an increased amplitude of fluctuations of the level of gross domestic products, the level of investment and consumption and exchange rates in particular countries. To address the adverse market circumstances, governments and central banks took actions in order to bolster the weakening global economy. The aim of this article is to present the anti-crisis actions in the United States and selected member states of the European Union, including Poland, and an assessment of their efficiency. The analysis conducted indicates that generally the actions taken in the United States in response to the crisis were faster and more adequate to the existing circumstances than in the European Union.

A Global Perspective on Securitized Debt

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven L Schwarcz
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Capital Market ◽  
Global Financial Crisis ◽  
The United States ◽  
Global Perspective ◽  
Capital Markets Union ◽  
The Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Asset Backed Securities ◽  
The Eu

Securitisation represents a significant worldwide source of capital market financing. European investors commonly invest in asset-backed securities issued in U.S. securitisation transactions, and vice versa One of the key goals of the European Commission's proposed Capital Markets Union (CMU) is to further facilitate securitisation as a source of capital market financing as a viable alternative to bank-based finance for companies operating in the EU. To that end, this chapter explains securitisation and attempts to put its rise, its decline after the global financial crisis, and its recent CMU-inspired revival into a global perspective. It examines not only securitisation's relationship to the financial crisis but also post-crisis comparative regulatory approaches in the EU and the United States.

Financial Crises in American History

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Nitschke ◽  
Mark Rose
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
American History ◽  
Financial Crises ◽  
Global Financial Crisis ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
The Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Changing Economy ◽  
Political Design

U.S. history is full of frequent and often devastating financial crises. They have coincided with business cycle downturns, but they have been rooted in the political design of markets. Financial crises have also drawn from changes in the underpinning cultures, knowledge systems, and ideologies of marketplace transactions. The United States’ political and economic development spawned, guided, and modified general factors in crisis causation. Broadly viewed, the reasons for financial crises have been recurrent in their form but historically specific in their configuration: causation has always revolved around relatively sudden reversals of investor perceptions of commercial growth, stock market gains, monetary availability, currency stability, and political predictability. The United States’ 19th-century financial crises, which happened in rapid succession, are best described as disturbances tied to market making, nation building, and empire creation. Ongoing changes in America’s financial system aided rapid national growth through the efficient distribution of credit to a spatially and organizationally changing economy. But complex political processes—whether Western expansion, the development of incorporation laws, or the nation’s foreign relations—also underlay the easy availability of credit. The relationship between systemic instability and ideas and ideals of economic growth, politically enacted, was then mirrored in the 19th century. Following the “Golden Age” of crash-free capitalism in the two decades after the Second World War, the recurrence of financial crises in American history coincided with the dominance of the market in statecraft. Banking and other crises were a product of political economy. The Global Financial Crisis of 2007–2008 not only once again changed the regulatory environment in an attempt to correct past mistakes, but also considerably broadened the discursive situation of financial crises as academic topics.

scholarly journals REGULATION OF SWAP AGREEMENTS WITH OTHER CENTRAL BANKS BY THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM OF THE UNITED STATES

2016 ◽  
pp. 0-0
Author(s):  
Мехти Галиб Мехтиев ◽  
Mekhti Galib Mekhtiev
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Federal Reserve ◽  
Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Financial System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Federal Reserve System ◽  
Market Rate ◽  
The Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Global Financial System ◽  
Reserve System

The present article evaluates history of swap agreements’ application and their functioning system in the framework of intercentral bank relations (in particular by the Federal Reserve System of the United States (the Fed)). Swap includes two transactions: the first is a currency exchange on the spot market rate and the second is a future transaction on the rate defined in advance. This mechanism proved its efficiency within its application through history. In 1970s, during a radical transformation period of an entire global currency architecture caused by collapse of Bretton Woods’s system the Fed applied swap agreements to promote stability on financial markets and particularly on currency markets. Later during the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 these agreements again have become rescue measures for the global financial system, as the financial shock caused liquidity deficit for financial institutions and thus cut dramatically credit supply. And finally nowadays the global financial system is badly in need of swap agreements. The swaps’ force of attraction is that firstly it differs from crediting as the latter is one way currency extension, while swap agreement is the exchange of equivalent values. And secondly it fixes the rate of the future currency transaction what lightens both monetary regulation within national jurisdiction and regulation on the level of public international law.

“A Change in the Balance of Power”

2021 ◽  
pp. 159-182
Author(s):  
Rush Doshi
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Global Financial Crisis ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
The United States ◽  
Grand Strategy ◽  
Chinese Leader ◽  
Regional Order ◽  
Balance Of Forces ◽  
The Global Financial Crisis

Chapter 7 explores the dawn of China’s grand strategy to build regional order as well as the ends, ways, and means of this strategy. Using Party texts, it explores how the shock of the Global Financial Crisis led China to see the United States as weakening and emboldened it to take a more assertive course. It begins with a thorough review of China’s discourse on “multipolarity” and the “international balance of forces,” concepts China uses as euphemisms for US power and which it ties to its strategic guidelines. It then shows that the Party sought to lay the foundations for order—coercion, inducements, and legitimacy—under the auspices of the revised guidance “actively accomplish something” issued by Chinese leader Hu Jintao in 2009. This strategy, like blunting before it, was implemented across multiple instruments of statecraft—military, political, and economic.

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